The day started with the usual welcoming greetings from the staff and local volunteers at Omamori Spa. Tom, Keith and I, joined by our respective volunteer interpreters/helpers, took our stations with our normally assigned “students.” I could overhear Keith and Tom engaging their charges with ever more complex English dialogues and concepts.

I began work with my smiling, happy, enthusiastic, partially sighted student, Thuoc. We started by practicing greeting his customer (me) at the door – “Hello. Please follow me” ( four repetitions). “Please lie on bed….on your stomach…and put your face HERE (in the hole at one end of the table).” “Where does it HURT?” “My RIGHT hip, ” I replied, followed by a review of right and left.

“We’ll fix it” was his enthusiastic, smiling response. As expected, he started kneading my right thigh. “Where else does it HURT?” We tried some additional phrases and massage of other body parts for a short time so Thuoc could concentrate more on his massage technique and less on learning English. He has a remarkable touch and must be very well-appreciated by his clients in the afternoons and evenings. He is such a pleasure to work with and never seems to become frustrated. I think that our Global Volunteers/Blind-Link team finds this to be true of all our students.